Important: nss and nspr security, bug fix, and enhancement update

Synopsis

Important: nss and nspr security, bug fix, and enhancement update

Type/Severity

Security Advisory: Important

Topic

Updated nss and nspr packages that fix multiple security issues, several
bugs, and add various enhancements are now available for Red Hat Enterprise
Linux 5.

The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having
important security impact. Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base
scores, which give detailed severity ratings, are available for each
vulnerability from the CVE links in the References section.

Description

Network Security Services (NSS) is a set of libraries designed to support
the cross-platform development of security-enabled client and server
applications. Netscape Portable Runtime (NSPR) provides platform
independence for non-GUI operating system facilities.

A flaw was found in the way NSS handled invalid handshake packets. A remote
attacker could use this flaw to cause a TLS/SSL client using NSS to crash
or, possibly, execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user
running the application. (CVE-2013-5605)

It was found that the fix for CVE-2013-1620 released via RHSA-2013:1135
introduced a regression causing NSS to read uninitialized data when a
decryption failure occurred. A remote attacker could use this flaw to cause
a TLS/SSL server using NSS to crash. (CVE-2013-1739)

An integer overflow flaw was discovered in both NSS and NSPR's
implementation of certification parsing on 64-bit systems. A remote
attacker could use these flaws to cause an application using NSS or NSPR to
crash. (CVE-2013-1741, CVE-2013-5607)

It was discovered that NSS did not reject certificates with incompatible
key usage constraints when validating them while the verifyLog feature was
enabled. An application using the NSS certificate validation API could
accept an invalid certificate. (CVE-2013-5606)

Red Hat would like to thank the Mozilla project for reporting
CVE-2013-1741, CVE-2013-5606, and CVE-2013-5607. Upstream acknowledges
Tavis Ormandy as the original reporter of CVE-2013-1741, Camilo Viecco as
the original reporter of CVE-2013-5606, and Pascal Cuoq, Kamil Dudka, and
Wan-Teh Chang as the original reporters of CVE-2013-5607.

In addition, the nss package has been upgraded to upstream version 3.15.3,
and the nspr package has been upgraded to upstream version 4.10.2.
These updates provide a number of bug fixes and enhancements over the
previous versions. (BZ#1033478, BZ#1020520)

This update also fixes the following bug:

  • The RHBA-2013:1318 update introduced a regression that prevented the use
    of certificates that have an MD5 signature. This update fixes this
    regression and certificates that have an MD5 signature are once again
    supported. To prevent the use of certificates that have an MD5 signature,
    set the "NSS_HASH_ALG_SUPPORT" environment variable to "-MD5". (BZ#1033499)

Users of NSS and NSPR are advised to upgrade to these updated packages,
which fix these issues and add these enhancements. After installing this
update, applications using NSS or NSPR must be restarted for this update to
take effect.

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure all previously released errata
relevant to your system have been applied.

This update is available via the Red Hat Network. Details on how to
use the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at
https://access.redhat.com/site/articles/11258

Affected Products

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 x86_64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 ia64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 i386
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 5 x86_64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 5 i386
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 5 x86_64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 5 i386
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 5 s390x
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 5 ppc
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 x86_64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 i386

Fixes

  • BZ - 1012740 - CVE-2013-1739 nss: Avoid uninitialized data read in the event of a decryption failure
  • BZ - 1030807 - CVE-2013-5605 nss: Null_Cipher() does not respect maxOutputLen (MFSA 2013-103)
  • BZ - 1031457 - CVE-2013-5606 nss: CERT_VerifyCert returns SECSuccess (saying certificate is good) even for bad certificates (MFSA 2013-103)
  • BZ - 1031458 - CVE-2013-1741 nss: Integer truncation in certificate parsing (MFSA 2013-103)
  • BZ - 1031461 - CVE-2013-5607 nspr: Avoid unsigned integer wrapping in PL_ArenaAllocate (MFSA 2013-103)

CVEs

References